Talk:Probiotic

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Contents 1 Specific Organisms 2 Welcome 3 Antibiotics 4 POV? 5 Containing yeasts? 6 Lactobacillus casei 7 Skepticism 8 "Reasons for Skepticism" Dispute 9 POV 10 totallydisputed? 11 Lacking in Citations 12 "There is no published evidence that..." 12.1 Potentially useful research

[edit] Specific Organisms

I am wondering if we should refer to probiotic organisms by name in the benefits section, in addition to listing them later. The reason I would like to see this is that the benefits of some of the species have been much more well-documented than others. L. casei and L. reuteri, for example, have shown real benefits for human health after repeated effects (a lot of the assertions about preventing infection, regulating the immune system, etc is based on studies on these species). Others, such as the much more well-known L. acidophilus, have never really shown anything above placebo. --AaronM 17:25, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Welcome

http://www.nutriwatch.org/04Foods/ff.html -- Check out the section for "Dairy Products".

This topic definitely needs to be expanded. I'll be stopping by on my journeys in researching probiotic foods.. but expertise will be warmly welcomed.

-- Sy / ^(talk) 01:27, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Antibiotics

Is it true that taking probiotics while on antibiotics can be beneficial? If so, I think this should be added.

[edit] POV?

"It is a common myth, even among professionals within the health care community..."
So what do you have to back up your assertions if the health care community disagrees with you?
This paragraph as well as the section on prebiotics seem distictly POV to me.
-Adjusting 21:11, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Probiotics are healthy bacteria, not just in supplements but also in foods. The Harvard Helath Letter ran an informative article about them in the May 2005 issue, which states that "a growing body of evidence suggests that you can treat and even prevent some illnesses with foods and supplements containing certain kinds of live bacteria." They go on to say that "The strains most often found in probiotic supplements and foods like yogurt are lactic acid bacteria belonging to the genera Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium."

[edit] Containing yeasts?

I just came across this article now, and I saw this sentence:

Probiotics are dietary supplements containing potentially beneficial bacteria and yeasts.

I don't claim to have a huge knowledge of probiotics, but I know that they are very often used in the treatment of candidiasis, and people who have canidiasis are usually told to avoid all mushrooms, yeasts, truffles, etc., in their diet – in other words anything that's a fungus. I have bought probiotics regularly, and have picked up bottles from shelves in health shops to have a good look before choosing. I can't recall ever seeing one that contained yeast.

I don't pretend that I feel 100% confident taking it out, as I'm not completely sure. However, it seems most unlikely that any of the normal probiotics would have yeast, and it aslo seems unlikely that any of them at all would have it. If someone feels it should go back in, please leave a note on the talk page, so that I can be sure that this is a genuine edit. Thanks. Ann Heneghan ^(talk) 02:20, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree, I know of no probiotic formulations that contain yeasts. Indeed if they did include yeast species such as Saccharomyces spp then one would expect rapid fermentation of the probiotic formulations. Velela 10:09, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

It is not common for 'commercial' probiotics to contain yeast, largely due to the public misconception about what yeast is and its role in disease and health. For example, Ann Heneghan above demonstrated the classic public misunderstanding; i.e., that people with a Candida infection should avoid all yeast. This is akin to saying that people with a bacterial infection (say for example, Helicobacter pylori) avoid all bacteria,(for example, Lactobacillus casei). Not all bacteria are the same; just as not all yeast are the same, though the common ignorance is prevalent enough to stop probiotic companies from adding yeast. See Quackwatch's entry

Many of the studies which have tested various probiotics both in animals an in human clinical trials have used certain strains of yeast such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces boulardii. Simply search PubMed for either of these two fungal species + "probiotic(s)". - Unsigned

Probiotics are healthy bacteria, not just in supplements but also in foods. The Harvard Health Letter ran an informative article about them in the May 2005 issue, which states that "a growing body of evidence suggests that you can treat and even prevent some illnesses with foods and supplements containing certain kinds of life bacteria." They go on to say that "The strains most often found in probiotic supplements and foods like yogurt are lactic acid bacteria belonging to the genera Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium." - Unsigned

There's also very useful information about probiotics at this website: http://www.usprobiotics.org/basics/ and they mention that "One yeast - Saccharomyces boulardii - also has been evaluated as a probiotic." - Unsigned

Saccharomyces boulardii is a yeast that is commercially available. It has surface receptors that interact with certain toxins from Clostridium difficile making it useful in adjunctive treatment of pseudomembranous colitis. It is useful in other settings, as well. It is unique among commercially available microorganisms in that it is the best studied. Google "Saccharomyces boulardii" for more info. Kd4ttc 17:08, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lactobacillus casei

Lactobacillus casei

Lactobacillus rhamnosus

Streptococcus thermophilus

Bifidobacterium breve

Lactobacillus acidophilus

Bifidobacterium longum

Lactobacillus bulgaricus

Bifidobacterium infantis

Bifidobacterium

[edit] Skepticism

I entered the section on reasons for skepticism. Probiotics sound catchy, but it really represents a fecal romanticism that if everything were just natural everything would be good and well. Studies are just coming out to suggest what roles these expensive supplements play. Kd4ttc 22:51, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I sympathise with your concerns and have, in the past, edited out some text about good bacteria and bad bacteria from an earlier version. What I am sure that your own observations acknowledge is that severely disrupted or compromised gut flora, especially after the use of broad-spectrum anti-biotics, benefit greatly from early restitution of a more normal gut flora which helps to obviate Candida colonisation. My own scientific (but non medical) reading of the literature suggests that some modern life-style and diets are themselves the reason for a compromised gut flora and in such cases some assistance in restoring a more normal flora may be beneficial. I am however wholly with you that by far the most appropriate way to restore a normal gut flora is by adoption of healthy diet and life-style (see Prebiotic). I would suggest that your inserted text need to be re-worked and simplified to sit well with the rest of the topic or else risk a unilateral deletion (but not from me!) Velela 23:10, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

It would be amusing to see that happen. The diarrhea that results from antibiotics is due to alteration of bacterial processing of mucus, rather than a flora change. I put the skeptic part in a separate section to confirm it is rather editorial in nature. If wholesale deleted it would be best if there were a rational stated. Kd4ttc 00:31, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

"Fecal romanticsim"? Can't we leave the armchair Freudian analaysis out of this?

[edit] "Reasons for Skepticism" Dispute

This section contains a number of unsubstantiated claims regarding the purpose and function of certain bacteria in host organisms. What makes me concerned about this section is that its premise seems to contradict the entire purpose of the article. The term "probiotic" is a dichotomous term, implying that there is in fact a distinction between "good/beneficial" bacterial and "bad/harmful" bacteria. This section not only undermines that idea, but fails to provide any logical and/or factual/empirical findings to support such a broad conclusion. Furthermore, it is poorly written and contains misspellings.

If this is, in fact, an unjustified oversimplification, then why is it that certain strains of bacteria do improve the human condition? Additionally, there is nothing in the definition of probiotics which suggest that they must, and can only, act independently; that they cannot act in groups in order to achieve a positive effect.

At any rate, I would recommend that the author of this section meet a couple of requirements before deletion of this section: 1) Provide citations. 2) Revise the section.

Respectfully, articles on Wikipedia are not soapboxes; they are designed to contain factual information with citations. If this burden is not met, it does not meet Wikipedia's high quality standards, and ergo, must be deleted.

70.77.93.61 05:58, 28 March 2006 (UTC) -- I agree with the above poster, but believe deletion is required. If you feel the section is still important, rewrite it with RESEARCH. It contains no useful information and looks like nothing more than soapbox drivel. It does NOT meet Wikipedia's quality standards and is unsupported by a cursory search of many of the known research databases, including those indexed by Google Scholar.

In the future it would be wise to verify your facts before writing them into an article. You've made this page look worse than those new age "cure everything with magnets" pages that pop up around the net. This is a great disservice to Wikipedia, and a great disservice to its millions of users looking for FACTUAL information.

[edit] POV

The lack of any mention that this entire concept is held in contempt by the scientific and medical communities is not mentioned. JBKramer 18:07, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Maybe that's because it's not "held in contempt" by science/medicine. In large part, the research that would provide evidence for or against the claims of probiotics is being done or has not been done before. There are some in vitro results that support the hypothesis that it could be beneficial and limited animal studies. I don't see many voices shouting out against it. It's more of a waiting game as the evidence is generated. I'm not concluding that this article is neutral, only that your contention that we need to add text condemning the approach according to science/medicine isn't going to provide that neutrality (and certainly not without actual evidence of disdain from science/medicine). ju66l3r 19:29, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

The article currently states that probiotic claptrap can do the following, that it cannot do: Prevention of Colon Cancer, Cholesterol Lowering, Lowering Blood Pressure, Improving Immune Function and Preventing Infections, Reducing Inflammation, Improving Mineral Absorption and Prevents Harmful Bacterial Growth Under Stress. None of this (except for the lactose breakdown, and the repopulation of the gut for compromised individuals) has any basis in science or medicine, yet the pseudoscientific garbage studies are cited for each of them. JBKramer 19:43, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I've changed the wording to indicate that experiments are indicating that these are potential benefits of the methods. This is more neutral and reasonable than removing the discussion entirely. This is not fortune-telling; it's a relevant and approachable scientific question with research in peer-reviewed journals. You may disagree that it will eventually lead to true medical benefits, but you can't remove the fact that people are studying it to determine if this is the case or not (just as you can't just wholesale delete the fortune telling article because you don't believe in what some think is the power of Tarot card reading). ju66l3r 19:57, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] totallydisputed?

It is one question to wield NPOV as a weapon against an article you don't agree with. It's another item altogether to outright question the factual basis of the article. You are going to have to provide sources that dispute probiotics as a science. Good luck. ju66l3r 20:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lacking in Citations

I just marked a need for citations in several places. I'm not universally questioning the validity of the claims, I'm just eager to see some actual data to back them up. Forgive me if adding this to the talk page is an unnecessary step, I'm fairly new to wiki editing. 24.220.79.116 20:20, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "There is no published evidence that..."

It is always difficult to substantiate claims that begin with "There is no published evidence that...". It also borders on the absence of evidence = evidence of absence syllogism [1]. When I read this sentence (There is no published evidence that probiotic supplements are able to replace the body’s natural flora when these have been killed off; indeed bacterial levels in feces disappear within days when supplementation ceases), I went with interest to the link, which is a BBC documentary. I found the source of this claim. But I also found, couple of minutes later in the clip, a researcher, talking about the perspective of colonizing the gut of young children with protective probiotics. The enthusiam appears to be very real, because health impacts are expected to be enormous. It seems that this source has lots of useful info, but is not well balanced. As a result, these negative opening remarks, right at the beginning of this article are unjustified. I'll try and find evidence to appropriately correct this disinformation. However, a quick look at the research (it is huge) seems to indicate that probiotics have been shown to rebalance microbiota (I mean, durably). This brings me to another questionable phrasing: "to replace the body’s natural flora when these have been killed off". Syntax is not great, but the main problem is that it is assumed that we're dealing with a natural flora that could be "killed off" and should then be "replaced". First, even if it was the problem, there are researchers who focus precisely on populating the gut of infants, before the whole flora has developped. Second, doctors prescribe probiotics to balance, not to repopulate. Total destruction does not happen in real life. To summarize, weak reference, wrongly interpreted; not neutral, damaging to the rest of the article, which has good references. Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 16:50, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi, a little more on this. The documentary can be found at : [2] . The exact place where we can find the reference for the "there is no evidence that" is 16 min 55 (pro); 17 min 44 (con). The BBC journalist presents the "con" section with this remark: "Maybe you need to keep on taking extra bacteria to get the benefit of them". The skeptic researcher says: "we can show that ..." (concerning the short-lived effects of probiotics). I perceive that this is biased. I think that "We can show" the opposite as well. Back to research. Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 15:53, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

There we go:

The most commonly used probiotics are strains of lactic acid bacteria (e.g., Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium and Streptococcus). The beneficial effects of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium have been discussed for decades. Bacteria in these two genera resist gastric acid, bile salts and pancreatic enzymes, adhere to intestinal mucosa and readily colonize the intestinal tract.[3] Let's go a little further. Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 15:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Potentially useful research

Rolfe R (2000). "The role of probiotic cultures in the control of gastrointestinal health". J Nutr 130 (2S Suppl): 396S-402S. PMID 10721914. 

Tuomola E, Salminen S (1998). "Adhesion of some probiotic and dairy Lactobacillus strains to Caco-2 cell cultures". Int J Food Microbiol 41 (1): 45-51. PMID 9631336. 

Lee Y, Lim C, Teng W, Ouwehand A, Tuomola E, Salminen S (2000). "Quantitative approach in the study of adhesion of lactic acid bacteria to intestinal cells and their competition with enterobacteria". Appl Environ Microbiol 66 (9): 3692-7. PMID 10966378. 

Naruszewicz M, Johansson M, Zapolska-Downar D, Bukowska H (2002). "Effect of Lactobacillus plantarum 299v on cardiovascular disease risk factors in smokers". Am J Clin Nutr 76 (6): 1249-55. PMID 12450890. 

Plummer S, Weaver M, Harris J, Dee P, Hunter J (2004). "Clostridium difficile pilot study: effects of probiotic supplementation on the incidence of C. difficile diarrhoea". Int Microbiol 7 (1): 59-62. PMID 15179608. 

Klarin B, Johansson M, Molin G, Larsson A, Jeppsson B (2005). "Adhesion of the probiotic bacterium Lactobacillus plantarum 299v onto the gut mucosa in critically ill patients: a randomised open trial". Crit Care 9 (3): R285-93. PMID 15987403. 

Lee Y, Puong K. "Competition for adhesion between probiotics and human gastrointestinal pathogens in the presence of carbohydrate". Br J Nutr 88 Suppl 1: S101-8. PMID 12215184.